TNV 09

Chapter 09

Chaeyoon slipped out the back door as if fleeing and slammed it shut with a loud bang.

Only after she hurried home, fastened the lock tightly, and secured the door did she collapse onto the entryway floor as though her strength had given out.

It was only natural that she couldn’t fall asleep that night. She had already spent the previous night staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, so it meant she had gone a full two days without sleep.

As the night wore on, the wind and rain gradually died down. By dawn, the weather had completely cleared, and the world outside the window brightened early.

Chaeyoon, who had been tossing and turning all night, stared blankly at the steadily lightening sky beyond the window. She thought she should order blackout curtains today, without delay.

But even as she repeated the words “blackout curtains” to herself like a mantra, she knew full well that she wouldn’t actually do it.

Chaeyoon suffered from claustrophobia.

It wasn’t severe, but if the room became pitch-dark because of blackout curtains, her anxiety would grow so intense that she couldn’t sleep.

“Better to just get a prescription for sleeping pills.”

She muttered the words like a sigh and got out of bed.

There was no point in lying there any longer—sleep wasn’t going to come. Besides, with an unwelcome guest around, she couldn’t clean the villa like she usually did on Sundays.

That meant the only thing Chaeyoon could do right now was go for a walk.

If you stepped just a little beyond the backyard of the villa, there was a narrow path leading up the back mountain. The mountain behind the villa was low and gentle enough to be suitable for a morning walk.

After her grandmother passed away, whenever her heart felt stifled, Chaeyoon had taken to climbing the mountain out of habit.

Breathing in the clear air up there always seemed to loosen the tight knots in her chest, if only a little.

That was why she knew well how cool and crisp the mountain air was on a morning after rain.

Chaeyoon put on a light but warm jumper, wrapped a scarf around her neck, pulled on gloves, slipped into her hiking boots, and left the house.

To Muhyun, the Yangpyeong villa was a familiar place. Until his elementary school years, he had spent every school vacation there.

Muhyun’s parents did not get along.

Their marriage had been arranged, and more importantly, Muhyun’s father was unfaithful—more precisely, he was incapable of controlling his wandering eye.

In the second year after the wedding, when Muhyun was born, his father began openly spending his time outside the home, as though he had fulfilled his duty.

In response, Muhyun’s mother began to show an obsessive level of interest—beyond mere concern—in her only son.

Chairman Seo took pity on his grandson and, whenever school vacations came around, brought Muhyun down to Yangpyeong with him.

Chairman Seo was a busy man.

As a result, he never stayed long with Muhyun—usually just two or three days before returning to Seoul.

But even after his grandfather left, Muhyun would stubbornly remain at the villa until nearly the end of the vacation before finally going home.

Everyone who worked at the villa was kind. They worried about him, but never interfered, no matter what he did.

For Muhyun, who was suffocating under his mother’s compulsive attention, life at the villa was nothing short of a refuge.

Because he came down twice every year like clockwork, there was nowhere in the villa that Muhyun didn’t know—including the small room next to the kitchen used as a “rest room.”

Even so, he never could have imagined that one day, after turning thirty, he would be trying to sleep in that tiny room.

Leaning back against the headboard, Muhyun let out a soft, incredulous laugh.

“Even the way you screw someone over is amusing.”

Muhyun had been quite fond of Mrs. Song, the villa’s housekeeper. Among everyone around him, she had been the most generous-hearted and warmest person.

He knew she had a granddaughter a few years younger than himself, and that the girl lived with her in the annex, but he had never once seen her face.

Thinking about it now, it was rather surprising. Every time he came, he stayed at the villa for over a month, yet he had never encountered the granddaughter even once.

Perhaps Mrs. Song had firmly warned her granddaughter each time not to bother the young master when he was at the villa.

Otherwise, it made no sense for a child under ten to remain holed up in the annex all day long.

But as a child, Muhyun had had absolutely no interest in Mrs. Song’s granddaughter.

Back then, he secretly wished that Mrs. Song’s warm concern and kind smile would be directed at him alone.

So if the granddaughter he had only heard about had suddenly appeared before his eyes, especially alongside Mrs. Song, he might have shown his petty, spoiled side without hesitation.

Had it been a little over a year since Mrs. Song passed away?

A year ago, Muhyun had been working at the New York branch, so he only heard of her death after returning to Korea.

By the time he came back, Chairman Seo’s health had already deteriorated, leaving him with no emotional room to dwell on Mrs. Song’s passing.

Maybe I should ask where she was laid to rest before heading back to Seoul tomorrow.

Recalling the image of Mrs. Song from the last time he had seen her three years ago, Muhyun thought this to himself.

Though he hadn’t admitted it outright, his thoughts had already begun to tilt away from the idea that Song Chaeyoon was his grandfather’s mistress.

And as memories of Mrs. Song surfaced on top of that, Muhyun felt his mood sink gradually, like cloth slowly soaking up rainwater.

It seemed he had drifted off while lost in old memories.

When Muhyun opened his eyes, he was startled to find himself lying in a room barely the size of a cigarette pack before quickly regaining his senses.

He had been plagued by vague, unrememberable dreams the entire time he slept—probably because the bed had been uncomfortable.

Checking the time, he saw it was already close to 5 a.m. Surprised at how long he’d slept, Muhyun leisurely got out of bed.

After drinking some water in the kitchen and taking a shower in the bathroom attached to the study, the stiffness in his body faded away.

Once he dried his hair, he went up to the second floor and found some clothes he could change into in the bedroom he had used in the past.

After swapping his wrinkled shirt and dress pants for something more comfortable, Muhyun wandered around the villa in a noticeably more relaxed mood.

It had been two years since he last came here.

Up until he left for New York after his second accident, he had come down to the villa every month, searching for clues to the memories he had lost.

But no matter how obsessively he tore the place apart, he couldn’t recall what he had done or how he had lived during those five months.

The only traces of his stay were a few items of clothing, a pair of shoes, and his laptop.

He wanted nothing more than to remain at the villa until he recovered the five months that had vanished entirely from his mind, but circumstances at the time made that impossible.

Only his family and a handful of medical professionals knew that Muhyun had lost his memory.

After all, he was one of the heirs of the Seongil Group. Among Chairman Seo’s mere three grandchildren, everyone knew how especially dear Muhyun was to him.

If word leaked out that someone like him had not only been in two accidents but had also lost his memory, it was obvious that both Muhyun and his entire family would be plagued by countless rumors.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—the only memories Muhyun had lost were those five months at the villa, so Chairman Seo issued a strict gag order.

Thanks to that, neither the second accident nor even his hospitalization became public knowledge.

Muhyun, too, behaved in front of others as though nothing had happened.

But inside, he was consumed by a desperate need to recover his memories.

At the time, he couldn’t accept the fact that five whole months of his life had simply vanished.

It wasn’t just a day or two—it was five months. And yet he couldn’t recall a single moment of it. He couldn’t understand how that was possible.

Unable to bear seeing his grandson like that, Chairman Seo suggested consulting a doctor, who offered this advice:

“There’s no need to rush. Lost memories often resurface eventually.”

“Are you certain they’ll come back?”

“They might not. But wouldn’t it be better to move forward rather than stop your life while clinging to what’s been lost?”

Surprisingly, the person who most strongly agreed with the doctor was Muhyun’s mother.

Up until then, she had been frantic to keep her son by her side in any way possible, but as soon as she heard the doctor’s opinion, she urged Muhyun to go to the United States.

“I don’t want to see you suffer because of those lost memories either. Go out, get some fresh air, okay? If you clear your head, the memories might come back.”